1965 reconciliation of Polish and German bishops a lesson in moral courage
National Post, 23 November 2025
As Europe faces a new war, a reminder that mercy sometimes requires a measure of boldness
I wrote last week of how the most significant churchman of the 20th century, St. John Paul the Great, proclaimed the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire with his June 1979 sermon at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw. The whole world knows of his impact.
All of Poland knows of their heroic churchman, Blessed Stefan Wyszynski, for 33 years archbishop of Warsaw and primate of Poland, who daily battled with Stalin and his successors, suffering house arrest for three years — only to emerge more powerful still. He lived long enough to host John Paul on his countryman’s triumphant return home.
Few know of Cardinal Bolesław Kominek of Wrocław, Poland, yet Polish and German bishops gathered this week at his monument in that city, to commemorate his key role in the historic reconciliation between Poland and Germany after World War II. In a Europe that has returned to war, in a world dominated by the politics of grievance and resentment, the 1965 initiative is worthy of hopeful remembrance.
At the end of WWII, Stalin took the eastern third, more or less, of Poland and incorporated into the western Soviet republics of Ukraine and Lithuania. In recompense, Poland gained new territory, forming a new western third from Germany. The Germany city of Breslau thus became Wrocław. Great migrations — further hardship after the horrors of war — ensued as both Poles and Germans had to move westward.
Kominek, archbishop of a city once-and-now-again Polish, teeming with migrants and refugees, afflicted by suffering and rebuilding from war, was faced with the practical challenges of living within redrawn borders under the heaviest imaginable burden of recent history. He thought creatively of how to make that burden light — or at least lighter.
In 1966, Poland would celebrate the millennium of its Catholic faith, dating to the baptism of Mieszko I in 966. The Polish bishops were inviting Catholic bishops from all over the world, including Pope Paul VI. (The communists would not permit him to attend.)
Kominek had the idea of using the occasion to concretely advance reconciliation between Poles and Germans, especially in the new Polish territories where he served. He took the lead in drafting an invitation that would demonstrate that mercy sometimes requires a measure of boldness and a lot of courage.
In their November 1965 letter of invitation to the German bishops, the Polish bishops addressed forthrightly the recent atrocities of the Nazi period against Poland. Twenty years after the defeat of Nazism though, the Polish bishops offered the hand of reconciliation. They included in their letter a breathtaking offer and petition: “We forgive and ask for forgiveness.”
The reception in Germany was positive. The reaction in Poland was not. Why should Poland ask forgiveness from Germany, the victim from the aggressor?
Under Stalin’s repression, the Polish bishops had been champions of Polish identity, Polish liberty, Polish dignity. The German letter was considered by not a few to be a betrayal.
The communist regime took advantage of the controversy, seeking to drive a wedge between the Catholic people and their bishops. They launched a propaganda campaign against any reconciling efforts with a mocking refutation: “We do not forget and we will not forgive!”
The future John Paul, then archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, defended the offer of reconciliation, noting that it was rooted in the “deepest principles of Christian ethics contained in the Gospels.” He noted that the German bishops, in their reply, had accepted responsibility for German sins, and asked for forgiveness. The proper response was to grant it.
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